TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2020
BAKER CITY HERALD — 3A
Fire damages
Baker City home
A fi re damaged on Baker City home Friday morn-
ing, and on Friday evening at another property
fi refi ghters stopped fl ames fromspreading to a trailer
to a home.
The fi rst fi re was reported at 9:27 a.m. at 2231
Third St. Eleven fi refi ghters from the Baker City Fire
The fi re caused an estimated $30,000 in damage,
and $10,000 in lost possessions, according to the Fire
Department. One resident was taken to the hospital
for evaluation, according to the department. The likely
cause of the fi re was an electrical short in a bathroom
fi xture. The American Red Cross and Best Friends of
Baker helped the residents and their pets, according
to the fi re department. The home is owned by Jamie
and Janet Conant.
The second fi re was reported at 10:42 p.m. at 1345
Elm St. A trailer behind the home, which is owned by
Melody and Earl Haney, caught fi re. Firefi ghters pre-
vented the fi re from spreading to the home. The fi re,
which caused an estimated $2,000 in damage, was
caused by an overloaded extension cord connected to a
space heater, according to the fi re department.
BEDS
Continued from Page 1A
She said the organization,
which started with seven
chapters, received a major
publicity boost in February
when TV host Mike Rowe,
responding to a request from
a Sleep in Heavenly Peace
chapter, featured the project
on his “Returning the Favor”
program.
“After it started airing in
the middle of February, they
were getting applications to
some chapters from across
the country,” Brown said.
At one point, the nonprofi t
had about 1,000 applications
from people wanting to volun-
teer to help build beds.
Today, Sleep in Heavenly
Peace has more than 200
chapters nationwide.
“We’re more than happy to
support a great project like
this,” said Brown, who started
the John Day chapter with
her husband.
For Saturday’s bed-building
event at OTEC, the coop-
erative donated the use of
its equipment, and seven
OTEC employees (including
two children of employee Ron
Rasmussen) were among the
volunteers who assembled 14
beds. Those will be combined
into seven bunk beds, said
Joseph Hathaway, communi-
cations manager for OTEC.
“We love to give back to
the community,” Hathaway
said. “OTEC is part of the
community, we’re owned by
the community, and it’s part
of our mission to give back to
the community.”
Chris Kommer, treasurer of
the Baker City Rotary Club,
was one of several Rotarians
who also helped build beds
Saturday.
Kommer said she has also
helped deliver a bunk bed to a
Joseph Hathaway/Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative
Molly Rasmussen, left, daughter of Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative employee Ron
Rasmussen, helps Mike Pommarane, OTEC’s director of operations, sand a board that
will become part of a bunk bed donated to local children.
Continued from Page 1A
Sleep in
Heavenly
Peace
Joseph Hathaway/Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative
Susie Brown, left, president of the John Day chapter of
Sleep in Heavenly Peace, works with Chris Kommer,
treasurer of the Baker City Rotary Club.
family in Baker County.
“It was emotional, very
emotional,” Kommer said.
Besides the wooden bunk
bed frame, Sleep in Heavenly
Peace includes mattresses,
comforters, sheets, pillows
and pillow cases, Kommer
said.
Rotary member Jerry
Shaw volunteered as a
member of both the club and
the Liberty Brothers Motor-
cycle Club, which had about
a dozen members on hand
Saturday.
“It’s a great thing that’s
going on and so we automati-
cally just jumped in to help,”
Shaw said.
The organization’s
mission statement
reads, in part: “We
fully believe that a
bed is a basic need for
the proper physical,
emotional, and mental
support that a child
needs. When it was
brought to our attention
that the need for beds
went far beyond our
own neighborhoods,
we stepped up and
took initiative. We’re a
national organization
answering the call to a
national problem.”
More information is
available at www.
shpbeds.org
COFFEE
Continued from Page 1A
“We brought her down here
with our whole family and
they were able to all see it
and it was a blessing, it was
really neat for her to be able
to see it before she passed,”
Christa Barr, 37, said. “It was
heartbreaking, but it was a
blessing that she got to see
her legacy and what she
created.”
Kris Barr opened her origi-
nal Coffee Corral location at
Campbell and Grove streets,
across from Geiser-Pollman
Park.
Five years ago she bought
the property at the southeast
corner of Oak and Campbell,
4 blocks to the east, with a
goal of having a second shop
there. Construction started in
March.
Christa Barr said an of-
fi cial grand opening for the
new location is still in the
works.
She said the shop, which is
considerably larger than the
original location, has drawn
positive comments.
“Customers love it and we
feel proud to have it for sure,
so it’s been good,” she said.
Christa Barr said she
plans to continue operating
both coffee shops for the time
being.
“If it can maintain itself
there, I’ll keep it,” she said of
the original shop.
The new location offers
indoor and outdoor seating,
allowing people to sit and
SCHOOLS
Samantha O’Conner/Baker City Herald
The Coffee Corral’s new location, at the southeast corner of Oak and Campbell streets,
opened on Aug. 24. The original location, near Geiser-Pollman Park, remains open.
“We brought her down
here with our family and
they were able to all see
it and it was a blessing, it
was really neat for her to
be able to see it before she
passed.”
— Christa Barr, talking about
her mother-in-law, Kris Barr,
who started Coffee Corral, and
saw the second location just
before she died on Aug. 26
That proposal, Witty
emphasized, depends on
Baker County continuing
its recent trend of hav-
ing few new COVID-19
cases. The county has had
seven new cases in the
past 3 weeks. The state
threshold for in-person
classes is 30 or fewer
new cases over the most
recent 3-week period.
Witty said Monday that
he believes the major-
ity — “but not all” — of
the district’s teachers and
staff “would like to get
back to in-person if we
can.”
“But of course we want
to do it in a safe manner,”
Witty said.
He will be joined in
Wednesday’s Zoom meet-
ing by Nancy Staten,
director of the Baker
County Health Depart-
ment, and Dr. Eric Lamb,
the county’s public health
offi cer.
In addition to ensur-
ing the county meets the
state limit for the number
of new cases, the school
district would have to
have the approval from
Lamb that there is no
community spread of the
virus before any in-person
classes could resume.
Witty said the current
proposal to bring younger
students back to schools,
but not seventh- through
12th-graders, is based on
the state requirements
for how many people stu-
dents can interact with
per week while attending
classes.
The current limit is 50
people, Witty said.
Baker schools can com-
ply with that requirement
for students in elemen-
tary and primary schools
because they spend most
of their day in the same
room, being taught by the
same teacher, Witty said.
But middle school and
high school students
move from classroom
to classroom for their
various subjects, so they
would be exposed to more
than 50 people per week,
he said.
It’s not feasible to deal
with the issue by having
middle school and high
school students, like their
younger counterparts,
stay in a single room and
have their various teach-
ers move from room to
room, Witty said.
For one thing, he said,
certain science classes
that include lab experi-
ments can only happen
in a specially equipped
room, so students taking
those classes would have
to cycle in and out.
For another, that
system would require
that students be broken
into groups based on all
of them having the exact
slate of courses.
The hybrid model that
district offi cials proposed
this summer — with
seventh- through 12th-
graders taking in-person
classes 2 days per week,
and taking online classes
the other 2 days —
would be feasible if the
state raised the weekly
limit from the current 50
students to 100 students,
Witty said.
He pointed out that
state education and
health offi cials this sum-
mer enacted less-strin-
gent guidelines for schools
in sparsely populated
counties, including Baker.
He said he has been talk-
ing weekly with state of-
fi cials about the prospect
of further liberalizing the
guidelines to potentially
make it possible to have
Baker middle school and
high school students at-
tend in-person classes at
least part of the time.
“The state did listen to
us previously,” Witty said.
Samantha O’Conner/Baker City Herald
Coffee Corral’s second shop is larger than its original
location at Campbell and Grove streets.
enjoy their coffee and food
while maintaining social
available at the original shop. ral’s roasters supply the two
distancing.
There’s also a second coffee shops, and the business sells
The new Coffee Corral also
has additional food items not bean roaster. Coffee Cor-
wholesale to other outlets.
VIRUS
Continued from Page 1A
According to the statement, the series
of negative tests allowed Meadowbrook to
resume outdoor visits with residents, and to
allow physical and other therapists to again
treat residents.
The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) re-
ported that there were 27 cases of COVID-19
in the Meadowbrook outbreak. The state
agency hasn’t said how many of the people
who tested were positive are residents, and
how many are employees.
The two Baker County residents who have
died due to COVID-19 were Meadowbrook
residents, according to the OHA.
As of Monday afternoon, the county’s total
number of cases was 95.
That includes 86 county residents who have
tested positive, and nine “presumptive” cases
— residents who haven’t tested positive but
have had close contact with someone who did.
A total of 1,851 of the county’s 16,800 resi-
dents have been tested, with 1,766 of those
tests — 95% — negative, according to OHA.
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